Category: Video

TheQuartering on #HighGuardianSpice

Wokey McWokerson

 

Now, to be up front about everything, I don’t know who this guy is. By his own admission, he doesn’t know a whole lot about anime. Nonetheless, I find his analysis of Crunchyroll’s trainwreck of a promotion for its new, original animated series to be largely insightful.

One of his lines here I absolutely love: “That’s what your whole career has been about? I thought you were an animator.”

Some of those opposing Crunchyroll’s project are, I think, wrong-headed. For example, I follow the account @animeoutsiders on Twitter; they claim to have insider knowledge (which they may or may not actually have) of Crunchyroll, and accuse the company of doing something ingenuous by creating its own animation studio and producing original animation, rather than throwing money at Japanese studios.

Continue reading “TheQuartering on #HighGuardianSpice”

Crunchyroll Decides to Suck Hard

Good gravy, this looks awful.

 

Just watch this video. Watch it and pay close attention to what the creators of Crunchyroll’s upcoming original magical girl show, High Guardian Spice, have to say about it.

At first, it doesn’t look too bad, if we can overlook the mediocre artwork and ignore that the title logo looks as if it came off a bottle of nutmeg. The show’s creators start out by telling us that their new series is about some girls who live in a city and go to school to learn magic. Sounds pretty formulaic. But, obviously, other franchises have seen success with the same premise, so this is not in itself necessarily a problem, even if it’s not breathtakingly original.

But then notice what else they tell us about the show: it has a “modern reflection of the world”—even though the art suggests a historic or fantasy setting. And then they tell us the characters and cast are “diverse” and that half the people involved in the show’s creation are women. And, ironically, they tell us that the “writers’ room” is all women—because, you know, they’re “inclusive.”

Continue reading “Crunchyroll Decides to Suck Hard”

Join Me Live!

In about 25 minutes (3:00 central, 4:00 eastern), I’ll be live with Ben Wheeler to discuss Jake and the Dynamo.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEuoMD_X4jw

And here’s the embed; not sure if this works for streams or not:

‘Captain Power’ is the Greatest Sci-Fi Television Show of All Time

All praise to the Machine! All glory to my Lord Dread!

At the moment, I’m unable to play DVDs on my computer, but I ask you to forgive the picture quality and to watch this video. In fact, since this is from a TV show that originally broadcast in the 1980s, the quality you see here is probably close to what you would have got back when this originally aired:

This is from the episode “Freedom One,” from the short-lived 1987 television series Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. This is in some ways the most ambitious television show ever made, being the first live-action show to have CGI-rendered characters (you can see one on screen here), being replete with action sequences and special effects, and full of innovative set design combined with miniatures. The show cost a cool million per half-hour episode and during its brief run had more-or-less taken over every film-processing studio in Toronto. Most of it was filmed inside a gigantic, abandoned bus depot that the creators, led by Gary Goddard, had filled with sets, miniatures, computers, and other equipment. J. Michael Straczynski, who became the de facto lead writer, credits Captain Power with teaching him the techniques of making a complex sci-fi television show on a budget, techniques he later used on Babylon 5. Continue reading “‘Captain Power’ is the Greatest Sci-Fi Television Show of All Time”

How to Spot an SJW Marvel Story

I have heard a lot second-hand about Diversity and Comics. I haven’t paid close attention to him simply because American superhero comics aren’t my bag. In this particular video, he gets into the mechanics of how to write a good story, and why political correctness hampers that.

I see now why this guy is popular (and why he is hated so much by some writers and illustrators at Marvel). He really understands how stories work, and his criticisms are calm, incisive, and fair.

James Rolf on the ‘Alien’ Franchise

James Rolf of Cinemassacre is reposting several monster movie reviews for Fall (or what I like to call “Pumpkin Spice Season”). His overview of the Alien franchise is entertaining and informative.

I always respect Rolf’s thoughtful reviews. I have a slightly better opinion than he does (and than most people do) of Alien 3, and I note that he doesn’t mention either the bizarre, disjointed sexual subtext of Alien, nor the dependence of Aliens on the Rambo movies, but this is nonetheless a thorough set of involved reviews. His discussion of the influence of Alien on video games such as Metroid, Xenophobe, and R-Type is interesting; certainly, the influence of its set and creature design is felt still today.

And I agree with him that Alien vs. Predator: Requiem totally sucks. I don’t remember why I even saw that, but I do remember it being my second worst experience in a theater, right after Pluto Nash.

‘Miraculous Ladybug’ Season 2 Official Trailer

The official trailer for the long-awaited second season of the French CGI magical girl series Miraculous has made its appearance just today. It’s a silent montage with accompanying music. Based on what we see here, season 2 will likely follow the pattern of season 1—which would be a good thing, as season 1 was enormously entertaining, if formulaic.

Rumors have been going around for a long while that additional superheroes will appear in the second season: particularly, Internet legend has it that Marinette’s bestie Alya will acquire the fox miraculous and that her enemy Chloé will acquire the bee miraculous. There’s no evidence of such a thing in the trailer; it may be rumor, an early idea that got nixed, or something they’re still planning but decided to leave out of the preview. But the symbols on that little box, suggest, at any rate, that more superheroes should be making an appearance.

I Can’t Get Enough of These

I know these aren’t new, but I only just saw them. They’re new to me, so maybe they’re new to you.

Apparently, this Bad Lip Reading guy started doing this because his mother went deaf, so he tried imitating her skill at lip-reading and found he was genuinely bad at it. He claims he actually comes up with his gibberish lyrics and dialogue simply by following lip movements with the sound off.

I believe him. Writing stuff this goofy would be hard to do intentionally. His humor has a genuine stream-of-consciousness sound to it.

He’s actually a talented musician as well as an amazing video editor.

TRANSformers

(NSFW)

Posted without comment.

I Am Definitely Getting Back into Ponies after Seeing This!

Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.

Holy horse, it’s like someone at Hasbro read my mind.

I don’t know what it is about me and movies and TV, but sometimes I think someone in Hollywood is spying me. I’ll be all like, “You know what the world needs? A Battlestar Galactica remake.” And then it happens. Or I’ll be all, “A new King Kong, but still set in the 1930s, would be awesome.” I had cause to regret that one.

A few years ago, I was all, like, “You know what this My Little Pony franchise needs? A movie that has elaborately detailed fantasy environments instead of the minimalist Flash animation of the cartoon show, where maybe Equestria gets invaded by some bad guys with airships, and the ponies have to go to Aquastria to get aid from the seaponies or something.”

I wish I had actually written that online somewhere so I could show you a link to prove it, but I didn’t. But still … holy crap.

I wet my pants when I saw this preview. Only a little bit, though. And it only happened once.

This and my novel is getting published. Best. Week. Ever.